


Sorrow's Joy

by Katalyna_Rose



Series: The Children of Legends (Little Solas, Fenora, and Misera) [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Smut, The Veil (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-09 20:46:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 12,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13489452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katalyna_Rose/pseuds/Katalyna_Rose
Summary: To watch a child grow up is a beautiful experience, but for an immortal it happens often. Abelas has seen many infants become children become adults, but none quite like her. He'd never really expected to care for anyone as much as he cares for her, but how can he betray her by allowing himself to love her?Since the removal of the Veil from Thedas, life for those elves who regained their immortality has slowed, time left now for all the things they wish to try. But it is still faster than it was when that immortality was all they knew, as though the world was holding its breath expecting this gift to vanish. For Fenora, this new world is all she knows, and the rules are unclear. The man she's grown up beside has never aged a day in all her life, but will he always see her as a child no matter how old she gets? The world is full of magic and miracles, but the happiness she wants might be lost to her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this ficlet is sort of a quasi-sequel of a sort to Vhenan, but it also sort of isn't because it has a very narrow focus. I don't really think I'm revealing any huge spoilers by posting it before Vhenan has been finished, I mean you all knew I'd take the Veil down, right? I'm such a sucker for happy endings...
> 
> I've had this written for months, since Fenora decided to pop into my head. It's undergone lots of edits and I sometimes pull it up to tweak it a little more. Honestly, I just want it posted. I just want it done! It's been sitting and staring at me accusingly for ages and it needs to shut up. So here it is! Enjoy it, or don't. Whichever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Image commissioned from @lavilsa on tumblr

The first time he met her she had no hair. She was also covered in blood and screaming, an unfortunate side effect of the birth trauma that he really could have done without.

He wasn’t supposed to be there, but when his queen went into labor suddenly in the middle of a meeting he felt he had no right or power to refuse her when she asked him to stay with her. He hadn’t known until that moment that she was fond of him and wasn’t entirely certain what to make of it.

“Abelas, where is he?” she asked desperately as she caught her breath between waves of pain. His hand was numb from the strength of her grip but that pain couldn’t block out the fury he felt at her husband, his king, who had allowed himself to be called away on other business when she had been due to give birth at any moment. No matter what urgent business had come up, he should not have left her side.

“He will be here soon,” he told his queen as her face scrunched and the pain built again, healers running around the room frantically and peeking between her legs every few moments. It felt horribly undignified, but what he knew about childbirth could fit into a thimble. “He has been summoned.” She nodded, but any reply she could have made was lost in the contraction and her subsequent screams of pain.

Scant minutes later, as if he had been conjured by his wife’s words, Solas burst into the room, running at top speed and shedding messengers and advisors in his wake. He waved a hand and the door shut behind him, slamming in the faces of several of his people.

“Vhenan!” he cried, grabbing her free hand and kissing her whitened knuckles as she immediately attempted to crush his bones. He reached out to her, his hand glowing with magic, but the lead healer snatched his wrist.

“No magic!” the woman barked, glaring. “Everything that can be done has been done, but she needs to feel this. She must know when to push and be able to feel her child leaving her body.” Abelas was amused that the healer would bark orders at her king, but in this room she was the law, not the man who wore the crown or the woman in bed panting and heaving her breaths. Abelas watched Solas struggle to reign in his magic and his desire to take away his wife’s pain and tried to extract himself from her grip. She would not release him even as the contraction ebbed, her grip too strong for him to break it without hurting her.

“Solas, you made it,” she panted gratefully, gazing at the man she’d married with open love and adoration and a level of vulnerability she would never have shown in front of others under any other circumstances. It made her look remarkably young, much closer to her thirty-seven years than she normally seemed. Abelas found it both endearing and slightly annoying; he wasn’t supposed to find his queen adorable.

“Of course, ma sa’lath,” he breathed. He didn’t seem to have noticed that Abelas was in the room. “I made a vow to you and I would not break it. I will be here for this, for every moment of it.”

“You already missed a few moments,” he murmured because he couldn’t help it. The queen still would not release his hand and it was troubling him.

“Why are you here?” Solas asked him, scowling, only just noticing his presence.

“I asked him to be,” Lyna told him, her eyelids drooping as the pain receded far enough for her to be fatigued. “You weren’t here and I needed _someone.”_

“I am here now,” Solas told her, lifting her hand to his lips again. Lyna turned her eyes to Abelas.

“I know I have no right to ask this of you, but will you stay?” she asked softly, an apology in her eyes that he didn’t know how to rebuff. He realized in that moment that he felt a certain kinship for the woman who had despoiled the Well of Sorrows in her race against an old evil. It was an odd feeling and an odd time for such a realization.

“If you ask it of me, I will stay,” he told her, and settled beside her again, his hand starting to turn blue as her pain crested once more.

The child, when it was born at last several hours later, was squishy-looking with strangely hued skin, covered in gore. Lyna started sobbing with relief when the child was finally free of her body and Abelas wondered why women put their bodies through such agony, especially more than once. The child was briefly taken away and wiped down swiftly. Then it was wrapped in a blanket and deposited in Lyna’s arms.

“It is a girl,” the healer said with a grin. Lyna smiled down at the tiny bundle in her arms, tears beginning to leak from her eyes. Solas took a deep, shaking breath as he ran one finger lightly down his daughter’s cheek.

“Fenora,” Lyna said suddenly, her voice hoarse from screaming. Solas grinned and kissed her sweaty forehead.

“Fenora,” he confirmed, a depth of love and reverence in his voice that Abelas had never heard before and would never hear again.

Her name was Fenora, and he was already lost for the tiny, wailing bundle of blankets and flesh. He just didn’t know it yet.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The first time he realized they were connected her hair was an inch long and seemed to exist purely to defy logic, wispy white-blonde strands standing out from her head like a cloud. She was seven months old. And she knew him.

Little Fenora crawled on her hands and knees across the courtyard, away from her parents and brother, toward Abelas where he stood by the eluvian and welcomed yet another group of ancients to Elvhenan. When she reached him, she burbled at him to get his attention. He looked down, scowling, and she raised herself to her feet, stretched out her plump little arms and made a grabbing motion. Then she made a demanding noise, insisting that he hold her.

A few of the elves laughed softly at the image they surely made, the tiny child, not his own, begging for his attention and his no-doubt horrified expression. When she made that little noise again, louder this time, he grimaced and gave in. She fit in the cradle of his arms surprisingly well, and he frowned down at her as she fixed her tiny fist around his chest plate and stuck a thumb in her mouth, bright blue eyes wide and curious. And he knew she would never let go. And he suspected that he wouldn’t let go either. It was an uncomfortable thing to realize about himself.

He conducted the introduction of the newly awakened elves to their new lives with his princess cradled in his arms.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The first time she called his name her hair was tickling her chin. Though some of the insanity of her wispy white locks was tamed under the weight of their length, they still had a tendency to defy gravity without the help of magic and she frequently had a cowlick. She was two years old.

It happened during dinner. Abelas arrived late, as he often did when he lost himself in work and forgot to check the time. He at least managed to show up at all, for once. He seated himself not far from the main table, pulled up to the four thrones on the dais and then removed after the meal was over. Fenora’s throne was tiny, a booster chair more than anything else, woven of her parents’ magic since hers had yet to manifest. Yet she spotted him as he slipped in and seated himself and clambered down from her chair. Her mother called to her, her father stood in panic and gathered his magic as though to smite anyone who dared touch his daughter, and her elder brother tried to follow, but she was small and quick, finding her own path around feet and under tables, ways that her brother could not follow. She finally found her way to his knee and stood there, grinning up at him, both hands braced on his thigh.

“Ah-bel-as!” she cried happily, pronouncing each syllable with care. He blinked down at her, oddly enraptured by her childish speech. Fenora did not like to talk, not yet, and she seldom spoke, preferring to communicate using wordless noises and gestures.

“Ah-bel-as!” she called again, holding her arms up to him. He hesitated a moment longer, then picked her up as she asked and settled her across his lap. She laughed gleefully and snuggled into the pelt he wore over his shoulders. Her brother, Solas, caught up to her at last and held his arms out for his sister with an apologetic smile, but Fenora refused to budge when Abelas attempted to hand her over.

“Da’vhenan, I must eat, so you must return to your family,” he told her, attempting logic even though he knew better. If she was determined, nothing would sway her. She was remarkably like her mother that way.

As predicted, she made little grunts of refusal and shook her head, still hiding her face in his pelt. He sighed, her brother sighed, and she giggled. He attempted to gently pry her hands away from his clothing, but she slipped out of his grasp again and again and he quickly realized that this would go nowhere fast. With a put-upon sigh, he gave up and shrugged at his prince, who shrugged back with a rueful smile and returned to his seat beside his parents. Abelas settled Fenora more comfortably on his leg while she giggled, pleased with her victory, then looked up to see what her parents thought of it all. The king was deep in conversation with his son, seeming unconcerned by his daughter’s antics now that her safety was assured. The queen, however, had her eyes trained on Abelas and he recognized the look; she’d found a puzzle and she _was_ going to solve it. He would be helpless in the face of her gentle probing and patient investigating. It might take years, but she would acquire the information she sought. It wasn’t the first time Abelas had been subjected to that look, but what disturbed him was that he wasn’t certain what puzzle she had just found in him and he did not look forward to finding out.

There was nothing to be done for it, however, so he finished his meal while Fenora petted the pelt he wore and mumbled wordlessly to herself.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The first time he realized that the ties between them would not be broken her hair brushed her shoulders. She was eight years old.

“Ah-bee! Ah-bee!” she cried, running up to him and bouncing, something small and wriggling contained in her hands. She thrust whatever she held out towards him. “Look what I made!” He raised a brow as she carefully peeled back her fingers far enough to see.

In her hands was a creature he had never seen before nor ever thought to imagine. It was a tiny dragon no bigger than his fist but fully formed and graceful, and it had _feathers._ Its wings were feathered instead of scaled and feathers grew along its neck in a way that made him wonder if the little beast had a crown it could raise up to posture for predators. Its feet more closely resembled bird feet than the claws of dragons and it looked to have the bones of a bird, hollow and light. It blinked at him, unafraid, with a dragon’s slit pupils facing forward to indicate that it was a meat eater.

“What is it?” he asked her, fascinated. She paused and frowned at the little creature in her palms, her excitement evaporated in favor of stern contemplation.

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding so serious that Abelas nearly laughed. “I haven’t named it yet.” They both looked at the little creature in her palms until it sneezed and Fenora yelped, shocked by lightning in its breath. Abelas couldn’t help but chuckle slightly as he reached out to heal the small burn on her finger. She was quiet and still as his magic took away the pain and smoothed the redness from her skin. Then she bounced and grinned again. “Ghilan’nain showed me how!” she announced, thrusting her strange creation at him again. He reached out to it and showed the tiny thing his fingers to sniff. It did so delicately, eyeing him with intelligence. Its eyes narrowed with suspicion until it suddenly leapt from Fenora’s hands to his, then ran up his arm to his shoulder. There it settled under the long braid of his hair, which had been draped over his shoulder. It tugged on his hair until it covered its lithe form and from this improvised cave it glared out with hostility. Abelas was stunned, speechless, but Fenora clapped her hands and giggled.

“She likes you!” the girl cried, thrilled.

“She is certainly quite interesting, da’vhenan,” he told her. Interesting was the only word he could think of to apply to the little thing.

“Will you keep her?” Fenora asked, blue eyes wide and earnest as they searched his face. “She can hunt for her own food. She mostly eats rodents, nothing bigger than a possum. And she’s very loyal, like a mabari. I might make her a mate, maybe some friends, and see if they can become common. Will you keep her?” Abelas studied her eager face, so proud of what she had created. She had truly done something incredible, using magic only Ghilan’nain had ever mastered to create a friend for him. There was no denying her accomplishment, and he suspected there was no denying her. When she looked at him with such innocent desire, he wondered how he could ever refuse her.

“Why do you want me to keep her?” he asked, rather than give in to the inevitable. Her piercing blue eyes seemed to see right through him anyhow, too intelligent by half.

“Well, she likes you. She imprinted, like a mabari, so now she’s yours. If you don’t want her, I’ll have to take her apart and rebuild her, but she was difficult to make so I’d rather not,” Fenora told him, her gaze turning to the creature on his shoulder. He could see her thoughts racing already, figuring out how she could take it apart and put it back together in the most efficient manner. He sighed and accepted his fate; he would not reject her thoughtful gift.

“I will keep her, then,” he said, and her eyes snapped back to his, her happy little bouncing resuming. “If only to save you the trouble of taking her apart again.”

“What will you call her?” she asked, grinning. He turned his gaze to the little not-dragon on his shoulder, and she rubbed her face against his cheek, making a sound almost like purring but with undertones of a roar.

“I shall call her Anea,” Abelas told his little admirer. Anea made that strange almost-purring noise again. “Perhaps you should call her kind Isenorean,” he suggested to Fenora. She tilted her head curiously.

“Combination of the words for bird of prey and dragon,” she murmured, thinking out loud. She hummed, then brightened and threw her arms around his waist and hugged him. He almost stepped away, surprised, but remembered himself in time to prevent the movement. He rested a hand on her head, her pale locks exactly as silky as they looked. “It’s perfect!” she cried as she released him. She waved over her shoulder as she ran away, grinning. Abelas smiled after her disappearing form.

And so he would go through life with Anea on his shoulder, sleeping under his hair during the day. By night, she would roam the halls of Sa’amal’uan and hunt for rats and mice. Sometimes he would wake to find a small treasure trove at the foot of his bed, lost shiny items and bits of scrap cloth piled up to make her bed like a dragon’s hoard crossed with a bird’s nest. She would look up at him and purr when he woke and resume her place on his shoulder once he was dressed. She was a wonderful companion and the most thoughtful gift he had ever received.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The first time she looked at him with a woman’s interest, her hair curled to the middle of her back. She was fifteen, far too young, barely more than an infant to him, he told himself. Yet there was strange sort of energy, a magnetic quality to her as she looked at him.

It happened while he was introducing the first of Anea’s hatchlings to her. They were seated on the floor of his rooms, crowded around the corner where Anea held court with her consort and their three new babies, who were still shaking off their sky blue shells and being cleaned by their parents. Anea’s scale-like feathers were fiery orange, her crest and tail blue-tipped white. Her consort was deep violet, not unlike Fenora’s mother’s eyes, and his crest and tail were white-tipped black. The babies were an interesting color combination as a result.

He was smiling, watching Anea’s pride in her family, the way she seemed to stand a little taller as she watched her children flop about as they attempted to learn how to use their limbs. He glanced over, wanting to share the sight of Anea grooming the feathers of the baby nearest to her, despite its indignant squawking, and found that look in her eyes. He knew it was interest, the sort that a woman who wanted him in her bed would show. She was lovely, brilliant and clever, attacking any problem she faced with grace and far more wisdom than anyone expected of her. And for an instant that look sent a pang of desire deep in his gut before he reminded himself who sat beside him. She was barely more than an infant, a girl he was watching grow up. She was his princess and he was often charged with her safety while her parents were away. Even if she were not a child, he could not have such feelings for her. She required and deserved someone more than him, better than him.

Yet her pale skin looked as soft as silk and tempted his fingers to brush her cheek. Her white-blonde hair was left loose most days, curling around her shoulders and begging him to wrap a hand in it. Her lips were full and pink, their shape a glorious combination of her parents’. Her eyes were the same stormy blue as her father’s but they held her mother’s wit and sharp observation. Her chin was short and pointed; her cheeks were high and round with small dimples when she smiled, not yet defined into adulthood. Her straight white brows always held a quirk of humor or sarcasm, teasing him endlessly. Her intellect rivaled any centuries-old Elvhen and her clever wit made people wonder when she was serious and when she was teasing. She was lovely, everything about her calling to him. She was exactly as curious as she had always been, eager to learn and explore. Her razor sharp wit even kept her brother on his toes and her brilliance rivaled that of her parents. She was beautiful.

But no, he could never want her. He could only admire her, his princess, his better

 


	6. Chapter 6

The first time he realized that she had grown into a woman her hair fell to her hips. She was nineteen.

He happened upon her while she was napping in a garden at the heart of Sa’amal’uan, surrounded by a dozen dozing Isanorean that started awake as he approached and fell into defensive positions. Anea chirped to them from her customary spot on his shoulder and they settled once more. Fenora woke as Abelas sat cross-legged beside her. She rubbed her eyes and blinked at him sleepily, and it suddenly hit him like a blow to the chest that she was grown.

Her cheeks had gained definition, high like her mother’s and sharp like her father’s, and her lips pouted beautifully as she roused from slumber. Her cheeks were pink from sleep, adding glorious color to the pale perfection of her skin.

“Ah-bee?” she murmured as she woke, still using her childhood nickname for him as she sometimes would when she was tired or stressed. He’d never admit that he found it endearing when she called him that. She reached out a hand and gripped his wrist, but he moved until he could hold her hand. It was a simple gesture, one he had performed many times over the course of her life, yet suddenly it made his heart beat just a little faster. “I was dreaming about you.” She smiled lazily, allowing her eyes to close once more as their fingers laced together.

“Was it a good dream?” he asked, then could have kicked himself for the low, rough tone of his voice. He had all but told her his thoughts with that question. Sure enough, her eyes popped open, though she considered him calmly, without suspicion or fear or disgust or anything else he might expect to see from her in that moment. Slowly, she smiled. It was not knowing or predatory or awkward. It was gentle, and she had surprised him again.

“It was,” she told him, then moved to sit up and quickly encountered leaves and twigs tangled in her hair. She made a face as he chuckled. He reached out and gently plucked a leaf from the mass of beautiful silk as she combed it with her fingers.

“Perhaps you should put your hair up before napping in the grass?” he suggested, raising one brow. She sighed.

“Maybe I should just cut it,” she muttered, glaring at the strands she held. Abelas frowned.

“That seems like such a waste,” he told her impulsively. “Your hair is lovely.” She met his eyes, a blush that had nothing to do with her nap coloring the tips of her long ears.

“Thank you,” she murmured, and concentrated on putting her hair to rights.

He was lost for her, his princess, and it would be a disaster.

 


	7. Chapter 7

The first time she asked for his company in private, her hair touched her knees. She was twenty-four, and accepting her request would have been unthinkable in the ancient days of Elvhenan. It would have been equivalent to an elder statesman bedding a small child. But times were different, the world was different, and she was far more mature than any twenty-four-year-old had been before the Veil. She was an adult in her own right, had earned that status a thousand times over.

She was stunning, thrilling, a temptation even in repose. She’d had many propositions from young men and women alike, but to his knowledge she had accepted none of them. She was waiting, she told anyone who asked her why, though she never said what she was waiting for. He had his answer during the celebrations of the Elvhen New Year when, after half a night of dancing and feasting, she came to him. She was not inebriated, despite ample opportunity. He knew because he’d scarcely been able to take his eyes from her all night. He was not intoxicated, either, as he disliked the sensation and the loss of faculty that came with it. When she sauntered up to him, swaying her hips sinuously, suggestively, she made the choice in full consciousness to surreptitiously slip her favor into his hand under the pretense a brief hug and a wish for joy in the New Year while Anea purred a greeting to her creator from his shoulder.

Her favor, a tradition for many Elvhen to be given to a lover to request their presence and show the giver’s favor, was simple, a braid made of light golden Elvhenan silk woven into a bracelet. It was a tradition that he did not follow and had not followed since he became Mythal’s Sentinel millennia before. Yet he could not stop himself from crushing her favor in his fist to hide it from prying eyes and pressing it against his heart. She smiled as she all but skipped away, pleased to have snared him.

And she _had_ snared him. And it was exactly as ruinous as he expected it to be, though not quite for the reasons he had thought.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Fenora paced in her room, having difficulty getting her heart rate to slow to an acceptable pace. She was giddy, excited, maybe even nervous. In her agitation, she straightened her bed sheets, then rumpled them on purpose. She didn’t want it to look like she’d spent an hour choosing the right color of silk sheets for this day. Even though she had. Then she draped herself over a chair, arranging her legs this way and that, spreading out her skirt to make it look carefree and tasteful. As soon as she was settled, however, she shot back up to her feet to pace. It was pathetic.

She wasn’t even sure that Abelas would accept the invitation that she had carefully and secretly given him. The favor, her first, was simple on purpose; she knew what kind of man Abelas was and he would prefer simple. But more than that, _she_ preferred simple. It was also woven from the sheets that currently adorned her bed. She had chosen them because the silk would glow in the light of the dawn, her east-facing windows letting in the light that was slowly beginning to brighten the sky. The celebrations would continue past dawn until midmorning, and then everyone would retire to their rooms, most in pairs as favors were exchanged.

The tradition of the favors was odd to Fenora. She didn’t understand the appeal in flaunting the fact that she was going to sleep with someone when she left the celebration; it seemed like too private a matter for all the frivolity. She had given a favor to Abelas only because it was the easiest way to convey her intent without using words. She did not expect him to wear it. In fact, she would probably be upset if he did; what they did in the privacy of her rooms was no one’s business but theirs.

A soft knock interrupted her fifth time rearranging the books on the low table in front of her fireplace, and she repressed a squeak as she dropped what she held. The end result of the dropped books was actually more visually appealing than what she’d been attempting to arrange, so she shrugged at it and went to the door.

Abelas stood at the threshold, looking as though he was debating whether or not he should simply retreat. His brows were drawn low and his shoulders were tense. She smiled at him, hoping that she was showing only gentle excitement rather that the anxiety that was wrecking her stomach. She probably failed. Hesitantly, he stepped inside her room and she shut the door.

 


	9. Chapter 9

His right fist was clenched, the one she had pressed her favor into, the one he had pressed to his heart as she retreated. He held it out to her slowly, opening his palm to reveal the crushed favor. “Perhaps you should save this, give it to someone worthy of you,” he said softly. She tilted her head at him.

“What makes you believe you are unworthy of my favor?” she asked him seriously. Of all the things she had expected to hear when, or if, he came to her, that was not even on the list. Part of her had hoped that he would greet her with a kiss, take some of the pressure off her to begin this. Part of her had suspected that he would show up only to reject her in person. Part of her had thought that he might skirt around the subject of his visit for a while until she seduced him away from his anxieties. Part of her had feared that he wouldn’t show up at all. But she had not expected him to tell her he wasn’t worthy of her.

He exhaled wearily. “I wear the marks of a false god,” he began haltingly. “I know what they are, what they signify, what she was in truth, and I wear them anyway as a matter of pride. I was once a Sentinel charged with protecting the Vir’Abelasan. I failed in that duty when your mother took the power of the Well. And you… We are not… I am thousands of years your elder. I watched you grow up. I was there when you were born.”

She had not forgotten the story of her birth, her mother telling her how Abelas stayed for her when her father was late, her father making amends with dozens of kisses interrupting the tale until her mother squealed with laughter and forgave him all over again. She felt herself blushing all the way down to her toes. Surely he must be unable to think of her in the way she thought of him, then, after watching her grow up as he did. And yet…

“But wasn’t this sort of age difference common in your youth?” she asked him. “At the height of old Elvhenan, wouldn’t most people have centuries if not millennia between their ages?” He sighed.

“Yes, but no one would have ever thought to bed someone as young as you. It was all but taboo,” he told her softly. And just like that she felt ridiculous, her belly tense with knots of sickness and stress. She wrapped her arms around herself and turned from him, striding across the room.

“I am just a child to you, then,” she said, carefully keeping her voice without inflection. “Alright. I suppose it makes some sort of sense. Thank you for explaining.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

She expected to hear her door snick shut as he left her, the dawn light spilling over her sheets her only comfort once again. Instead, she didn’t hear a thing, didn’t even sense his movement or intent in the air as he stalked silently across the room to her. She had no idea he’d so much as twitched until he yanked her hips to spin her around, pulled her tight against his chest, and pressed his mouth to hers in a searing kiss that burned all the way to her toes. She whimpered and clutched at him, adoring the intense heat of his body, closer, warmer than she’d ever felt before. He wrapped his arms around her, one hand sliding through her hair to angle her head, and for long moments nothing existed but the supple glide of lips and the taste of tongues dancing in their mouths.

When Abelas finally relinquished his claim on her mouth she was breathing heavily and thoroughly confused. That was no chaste peck an adult might bestow upon a child; it had been hot and hard and heavy, passionate enough to make moisture begin to gather between her legs. And she needed more, but she needed answers, but oh, she had to touch his skin. She settled for pressing her hand against the side of his face and was surprised when he leaned into her touch, his burnished gold eyes burning into her behind his forest green Vallaslin.

“In the old days, that was true,” he told her, his voice low and rough with passion and emotion. “But times have changed. By shemlen standards, you are a woman grown, and have been for some time now. Enough of that culture remains in our people that children grow and mature much more quickly than they once did. I do not see you as a child anymore, da’vhenan, because you are not one.” She gasped softly at the use of the old endearment, one she hadn’t heard from his lips in more than five years.

“Why call me that again now?” she asked in a whisper. She would admit only to herself that she liked being his little heart, had missed it.

He hesitated before answering. “I thought to distance myself from you, from my attraction to you,” he said softly. “It was a fruitless endeavor.”

Fenora grinned and took his hand, pressing her favor back into his palm. She looked up at him. “Will you accept my favor, then?” she asked coyly. He searched her face for a moment before he slipped the braided silk onto his wrist.


	11. Chapter 11

From there, it was simple to strip each other down, their lips barely leaving each other’s skin for a moment. Abelas was insistent, pressing himself against her as tightly as possible. He maneuvered them until she gasped as she lost her balance and went sprawling across the bed, completely naked. His eyes were intense as she laughed with passionate glee, his expression dark and full of desire. He covered her body with his quickly, wasting no time. He kissed her lips for a moment more before trailing desperate kisses down her neck, teeth nipping to make her shiver for him. By the time he reached her breast, her nipple was firm and pebbled and begging for the touch of his lips. Fenora moaned and arched up to him, sliding a hand into his hair, as pale in color as her own. His eyes met hers for just a moment before he ducked his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth. She released a shuddering breath and knew that this image would stay with her all her life. Abelas, his brows drawn down tight in concentration and pleasure, the swell of her breast capitulating to the will of his clever mouth as he flicked at her nipple with his tongue, strands of hair coming loose from his braid to tickle her belly. Already a light sheen of sweat covered his skin, shimmering alluringly in the dawn light. He was beautiful.

After long moments of making her writhe for his mouth on her breasts, he moved down again, licking a long trail down her stomach, kissing her navel, until finally he reached the place she needed him most. His eyes flicked up to hers again, his breaths brushing heavily against her core, and she nodded frantically, granting him the permission he needed. He smiled at her, a tilt to just one side of his lips, eyes narrowing slightly in mirth, and she needed to draw him just like this, viewed from over the mounds of her breasts, his mouth less than an inch from her cunt. She rubbed her thighs together, desperate for friction, and he parted them with a light touch. She welcomed him, spreading her legs wide for him, and he settled between them. His hands slid under her backside and lifted her hips to his mouth. She gasped at the first touch of his tongue against her core, writhing in his grasp. His hands tightened on her cheeks, nails digging into her skin and warning her to keep still. She did her best, though she couldn’t quite still the slight tremor that shivered through her every few seconds as he leisurely explored her folds with his tongue. He was taking too long, keeping his touch away from the most sensitive part of her, where she truly needed him to be. She bucked her hips up in his grasp, trying to guide him where she wanted.

And he dropped her. She grunted when her hips met the bed again and looked at him, afraid that she had somehow offended him, but mischief gleamed in his eyes. His gaze locked with hers, he plunged one finger knuckle deep inside her. She gasped, her eyes gone wide, her back arching off the bed. He kept moving that clever finger inside her, searching, roaming, curling up until he found a spot that made her see stars. He figured out what he had found when her thighs threatened to crush his head with the force of their clenching around him, trying to draw him further in or push him away she couldn’t be sure.

And then a clever tongue joined that clever finger, pressing and sucking on her clit until she flooded from within. She was very certain that time stopped around them for hours as he wrought her orgasm with one finger and the lightest press of his tongue. She arched up, writhing beneath him, careful not to dislodge his touch from her core. Her hands searched aimlessly through the sheets, gripping the cloth in desperate fists. She didn’t have the breath to tell him _too much, too much, don’t ever stop._ She thought it might continue forever, was afraid that it would and terrified that it wouldn’t.

 


	12. Chapter 12

But finally the mind-numbing pleasure began to ebb as his touch slowed and finally stopped. He gently withdrew his finger from her core and she stifled a groan at the sensation on her overworked nerves. For long moments only the sound of her heavy breathing disturbed the tranquil silence of the winter morning as she enjoyed the aftershocks of her first orgasm wrought by another’s hand.

Abelas placed gentle kisses upon her belly, his hands massaging her hips restlessly, but she was too weakened and shocked by pleasure to tend to him yet. Fenora had been waiting for this for most of her life, and she intended to enjoy it to the fullest, make it last. She had fooled around with others before, kissed a few girls in shadowed corners, gone down on a few boys in the dubious privacy of store rooms. Yet she had never let them touch her below the waist. She hadn’t wanted them, not truly. Some of them she’d seduced to try to get this devilishly talented man out of her head, telling herself everything that he’d sung as a mantra to keep his distance. It had never worked and she always ended up retreating to her rooms, to this bed, alone to find her pleasure with her own hand. And ever since puberty, she inevitably found herself thinking about this man, this ancient and stern yet playful and even gentle man who now laid between her legs and worshiped her in her afterglow.

Finally, her breathing steadied and she met his gaze with a grin. She crooked a finger at him playfully and he smirked, pleased with his efforts. He crawled the length of her body slowly, teasingly, but when he got close enough she gripped his hair in her fist and yanked his mouth up to hers. He moaned, low and soft, the sound like satin in her belly, and eagerly lapped at her tongue, her own flavor flowing into her mouth from his and exciting her beyond reason.

Fenora ran her leg along the length of his and hooked it over his hip, trying to draw him into her, but he resisted, seeming content to simply kiss her. She bit his lip. “Sathan, Abelas,” she murmured into his mouth, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, lightly running her nails along the shaved sides of his head and undulating her hips beneath him. He pulled his mouth away and pressed her hips down so that he could meet her eyes. The burnished gold of his gaze was nearly swallowed by the dark excitement of his pupils, threatening to drown her in their depths.

“Are you certain about this?” he asked her.

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Image commissioned from @lauren-draws-xxx on tumblr

She smiled. “I would not have given you my favor if I wasn’t,” she told him. “I planned this. It is not some flight of fancy.”

“But I know that it is your first-“

“What does that matter?” she asked him seriously. “I have chosen you and you are here now. Take what I am giving you, _please.”_ She arched up to him to punctuate her plea. She was desperate, aching, the previous sedate warmth of her orgasm having abandoned her as her body called out for his manhood to press inside. She felt herself clenching within, devastatingly empty and needy, and she tugged at his hips with her legs wrapped around his waist. She managed to get his rigid cock to touch the aching wetness of her cunt and they shuddered together, vibrations shivering from one to the other and back. “Sathan,” she whispered again, kissing his neck and holding on to him for dear life. “I need you.”

And he gave in. With a long, low, lewd moan, he pressed that hard, hot weight of his within her. She gasped and arched up, eager to meet him. He moved slowly, inch by agonizing inch, his lip gripped in his teeth as he fought his instincts and his needs in order to stretch her slowly. He was large, larger than the others she’d seen, and the friction caused a maddening burn. But he was so gentle, so patient, that she felt no pain. He sheathed himself to the hilt, and as his hips met hers the tip of him found that perfect spot inside her. She was already so close, driven to the edge by the burn of friction and his care for her that this one small touch on that glorious little place deep within sent her writhing into another orgasm. She heard his gasp as if from a great distance as he felt her fluttering around him, milking him, demanding all he had. He denied her body its due, however, stilling himself and burying his face in her neck to breathe deeply and prevent himself from finding completion with her until at last her orgasm subsided.

“You… feel…” he moaned, pulling back far enough to meet her eyes and no further. “It is indescribable.” She had to swallow hard before she could answer.

“I never dreamed… it would be quite like this,” she told him with a soft smile. It was true; the mind-numbing quality of the pleasure and the way she felt so full yet so needy were beyond anything she’d imagined during long nights spent wishing for his touch.

She shifted her hips beneath him experimentally and gasped sharply at the lightning that traveled through her body in response. Abelas withdrew slowly, then pushed back inside at the same agonizing pace. It sent liquid fire through her, all the way to her fingertips. A few more slow, shallow thrusts, his lip becoming ragged as he bit it hard to keep himself under control. But she didn’t want his control now, didn’t need it, her body crying out for more, for passion, for his skin slapping against hers at whatever pace would satisfy them the most. So on his next thrust into her she lifted up quickly, snapping her hips into his. His eyes went wide, breath sucked in through a wide open mouth, eyes quickly rolling into the back of his head at the sensation. She was equally taken over by the pleasure, needing more.

 


	14. Chapter 14

“Abelas, take me,” she begged, wrapping a hand in his hair once more to pull him in for a kiss. “Take me in every way you can think of, as hard and fast as you desire. Show me what makes you come undone.” She kissed him as he shuddered, whimpering into his mouth as his desperate trembling shook them where they were joined, his length growing impossibly harder within her.

He sat up and slipped out of her. She cried out, desperately clutching at him, but he moved her with quick, jerky motions and flipped her onto her belly. His hands gripped her waist and pulled her up onto her hands and knees and she stopped resisting. He gathered the blanket of her hair and tossed it over her right shoulder so that it fanned out beside them and did not get in his way. Then he swiftly thrust hilt deep inside her. Her breath left her all at once at the fire and lightning that his quick thrust sent through her and she did her best to rock back against him each time he thrust back in. Her face was pressed against the sheets, her arms beside her head to keep herself from sliding away from the punishing pace he set. He pounded into her from behind, her knees spread to give him the best access, his hands on her waist just above her hips to give him the best grip to pull her to him. It was incredible, their skin slapping just like she wanted, her juice dripping down her thighs as it leaked out around his girth, their harsh breathing synced with the rhythm of his thrusts. She came again, quickly, her toes curling and a soft, keening whine escaping her mouth. He stilled within her when it began, but it continued around the glorious heat of him inside her.

She returned to herself, certain in the knowledge that he had not finished yet, hoping desperately that he would continue. She needed more, each completion only leaving her hungrier for him. She wiggled against him, trying to lure him into giving her more, but his hands tightened on her.

“Venavis,” he commanded harshly, and she realized that his breathing was still hectic, racing from his lungs, while hers was slowly settling. “I need to last,” he murmured, and she understood. He was withholding his orgasm because he wanted to prolong this, to take her as many times as he could before he found completion within her. She waited.

Finally he shivered and pressed down onto her until he had her hips pinned beneath him flat on the bed. His hands found hers and turned them palm up, then he laced their fingers together. In this position, pressed flush against her back, he continued, holding her at his mercy, pinned to the bed by his hips and hands. She could not have moved if she tried, and try she did. She tried to lift up to meet him, but the pressure of his chest against her back kept her from getting any leverage so she submitted to his dominance. He took her hard, sweat slicking their skin as his breaths heaved into her ear and across her face. She turned her head until she thought her neck might snap so that she could press her lips to his and steal his breath. He gave a guttural growl when she managed it and she laughed breathlessly, allowing her head to relax back onto the mattress. He bit her ear hard enough to sting, the tip of it twitching between his teeth, and she gasped, shivering. He took her harder, grinding his hips into her with each thrust, the heavy weight of his sack teasing at her clit as he snapped his hips into her. And like this, helpless to do anything but allow him to claim her, possess her, she came again, hard. Her muscles all seized up, her fingers tightening around his, and he slipped out of her to allow her to ride it out with the weight of his body still anchoring her to the bed.

 


	15. Chapter 15

When she could breathe again, he flipped her over and smoothed her hair away from her face. She smiled at him and tucked a few sweat-soaked strands of his hair away behind his pointed ear. He kissed her wrist and it made her shiver. He gripped her leg behind the knee and stretched it up to hook it over his shoulder, then thrust into her again and she sighed as he entered her achingly empty body, relaxing beneath him. It felt right to have him inside her, dangerously so, but that thought fled from her when he thrust, quick little snaps of his hips into her core. Her eyes were about to roll back in her head as she thrashed for him, but his hand caught her jaw and made her look at him. It was startlingly intimate, even more than the feeling of his body moving inside and above her, to watch the way his glistening, pale lips trembled around each breath, his eyes dark with lust as they searched her gaze, brows drawn low over them in concentration. His expression was so open to her, everything he was feeling laid bare for her to see, and she wondered what he saw in her face as they stared at each other and breathed through the pleasure. She was soaking, dripping for him, the obscene wet slap of skin the loudest sound in the room. Their frantic breaths and the sound of the world waking up beyond the windows were like a whisper compared to it.

He was haloed by sunlight, the first rays of the morning gleaming on his sweat-slicked skin and highlighting the branches of his Vallaslin that stretched back under his hair and across the shaved sides of his scalp. He wet his lips with his tongue and she followed the movement with her eyes before copying it and his eyes darkened even further. He was exquisite, shadows moving all along his torso as the sunlight came in at an angle and caught on his muscles, their definition throwing small patches of his skin into darkness. A vein bulged in his bicep next to her thigh, but the hand that held her leg in place over his shoulder was gentle, his fingers on her flesh never bruising her.

It was the intimacy of their shared gaze and the care he took with his powerful body that truly undid her that time. She began her orgasm with her gaze still stubbornly locked to his, her mouth opening wide on a soundless scream, her brows drawing down in desperation and her toes curling behind his ear. He kept moving, kept thrusting into her, and she just kept coming, her body liquefying for him, until she could no longer maintain eye contact. Her eyes rolled back, her lids closed, and the world shattered as a sudden spray of liquid forced itself from her body. Her breath stopped as it continued, her inner muscles clenched so tightly around him that she wondered, in some far off and tiny corner of her mind that wasn’t completely overwhelmed, if Abelas was in pain. Her heart was pounding and she couldn’t draw breath around the impossible pleasure she was feeling, a puddle growing between their bodies and beneath them until finally Abelas stopped thrusting and allowed her pleasure to settle. As soon as she could, she took a ragged breath, shaking and panting like a horse after a race for its life, spots of black in her vision. He let her leg fall from his shoulder, gently laying it on the bed as she whined at the shift within her. He laid himself atop her and pressed his damp forehead against hers as she slowly, slowly returned from the abyss of pleasure.

She opened her eyes to see his dark gaze assessing her. “Once more,” he whispered, his inflection turning up at the end to make it almost a question. His voice was hoarse and ragged as if he had been screaming, though they both were almost silent in their pleasure. She nodded and smiled for him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders to keep him there, intimately pressed against her front.

 


	16. Chapter 16

“Like this,” she breathed, her voice as ragged as his. He nodded, his forehead still pressed to hers, the end of his pale braid mingling with her white hair on the sheets beside them. He pulled on her knee, raising it until she wrapped both weakened legs around his waist. Her hips felt like water and she knew she’d be deliciously sore in a few hours. She looked forward to it.

Wrapped in each other, one of his hands under her shoulders to curl her into him and the other tangled in her hair, her legs cradling his waist, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her hands pressed against his back, they made love. It was slower this time, his entire body undulating over her to thrust his length in and out, her body mirroring his. As she found her center, recovered from the explosion of her pleasure, he sped up and she followed. He kissed the side of her mouth and she chased his lips. She dug her nails into his back and he shivered, his next thrust less calculated. She smiled mischievously and ran her nails up the length of his spine from as far down as she could reach all the way up into his hair and his rhythm broke. He thrust, arrhythmic and panting desperately, and she could feel another peak approaching. She hoped he would follow her down this time, unsure if she could handle more than this without simply breaking apart into fragments.

“Isreun,” she moaned at him and he sucked in a breath. He put just a little distance between their bodies to give him better leverage to pound into her, then glanced down at their joining. What he saw as he disappeared into her again finished him. He lost all sense of rhythm and pounded her in short, desperate thrusts, and the feeling of his first hot pulse of seed brought her down with him. She clenched and milked him as he gave up his seed, coming hard within her. Her legs held him close as his thrusts stopped and he simply pressed himself as deep inside her as he could go and jerked his hips against hers.

Finally, they were spent, and for long moments they stayed like that, holding each other, his length slowly growing limp within her. They breathed together, calming each other, until he found the strength to slip out of the wet heat of their combined spend and lay beside her. And they lay side by side as the world woke up, sunlight streaming over them both and all concept of time long forgotten. The sheets were soaked and they were both covered in sweat, crotches a dripping mess, but they simply lay there, content with each other.


	17. Chapter 17

After a while, when their breathing had settled to a sedate pace and Fenora felt herself slipping slowly toward sleep, Abelas picked up a long strand of her hair and held it to the sunlight, twisting it this way and that, admiring the effect of the sunlight on it. “Your hair turns to opal in the sun,” he murmured reverently, watching the rainbow of colors that the light brought out in the white of her hair. She reached over and brushed a wayward strand from his eyes.

“Yours glows,” she murmured back, smiling, her eyes half closed, wondering how much she would regret it later if she fell asleep like this without washing herself or changing the sheets. The scent of his skin and sweat and their activities was all over her, a pleasant, pungent aroma that she wanted to bathe in and she wasn’t entirely sure that her legs would hold her if she attempted to rise.

“Fenora,” he breathed, leaning closer to kiss her gently. “Your favor is a treasured gift that I shall never deserve.” She gave him a lopsided and exhausted smile.

“As my mother frequently tells my father, it isn’t about what you think you deserve,” she replied fondly. But he stiffened and dropped her hair. After a moment he frowned and sat up, rubbing his face with his hands

“I should not be here,” he muttered and she frowned.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Fenora, I cannot… This was a mistake,” he said at last, and her mouth fell open in shock as she felt like he’d just smashed her chest in with his war hammer. A mistake? It had been the best thing in her life! She’d been hoping that it would happen again, maybe every morning. She wanted him, cared for him, maybe even loved him. But to him, she was a mistake? She wanted to throw up.

“Then go,” she told him harshly. He shuddered but still would not look at her where she lay covered in his pleasure. In silence, she watched as he gathered his clothes, donning them swiftly, silently begging him to stop and apologize and come back to bed. Then he left without a glance back or a word of apology. And, still covered in the evidence of their activities, her shame, she sobbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DID SOMEONE ORDER ANGST? ANGST WITH A SIDE OF REGRET? COME GET YOUR FUCKIN' ANGST!


	18. Chapter 18

He knew it was entirely the wrong thing to say as the first breath left his lungs. Her hair was still spread across the bed under his hand and he wished he could take the words back, explain properly, but fear closed his throat. It was not right. He was a slave to his regrets and to his old ways and to his fear, and he could not comfort her. He could not explain or tell her that she had just brought him more pleasure than he’d known in all the long years of his life combined. He could not tell her how much he cared. He could not say that he felt like the thief who plundered the temple he had been sworn to protect. All he could do was flee. And he hated himself for it. But she was his princess, her parents were his sovereigns. He was a servant, an advisor, no fit love for their daughter. No fit love for her…  
  
She sheared off her hair until only a few scant inches remained three days later. He mourned the loss, but not as much as he mourned the loss of what they’d had.


	19. Chapter 19

The first time he knew that he’d lost her for good her hair was only three inches long and spiked around her head. She was twenty-six.

No one knew why she no longer spoke to her oldest friend, the man she had never been far from in her life. No one ever suspected that it might have something to do with failed intimacy. No one knew what they had done together, but her mother, his queen, looked at him as though she had solved her puzzle at last and was disappointed with the answer. She had begun unraveling him when her daughter was only two years old, and though she seemed saddened she did not speak of it.

And Fenora’s favor, an unmistakable braid of the finest golden Elvhenan silk, was wrapped around the wrist of a young Elvhen boy who strutted around the great hall of Arlathan like a god, showing off her favor in exaggerated gestures as he spoke to anyone who would listen. Abelas considered the merits of killing the swaggering idiot as he very carefully did _not_ sulk in an empty corner of the New Year Festival.

She had not spoken to him in two years and his guilt and shame kept him from approaching her to make amends as he should have done the moment he spoke the words. They did not speak, but still he watched her.


	20. Chapter 20

The first time he knew that he was ruined, her hair teased her earlobes. She was forty-five and looked exactly as she had the morning he took her virginity and she took his heart.

There were whispers in the halls of Sa’amal’uan and even beyond it to all of Elvhenan that spoke of the easy princess, who would spread her legs for nearly anyone who approached her with that desire.

“She always has,” they murmured, feeling superior, thinking her less for taking pleasure wherever she sought it. “She’s always been free with her body.” They were conveniently forgetting her twenty-four years of strict chastity and refusal of all advances beyond a few kisses. They did not know that her awakening into her sexuality began with him.

Her parents did not address the rumors directly, but they made it very clear that their daughter was loved and cherished and was to be respected as she ought to be at all times. The queen would smile sharply at anyone who even remotely spoke ill of her beloved daughter for her sexual freedom, and with only a few words whoever had been so unwise would all but flee her presence and never speak of it again.

Abelas wanted to kill them all for speaking of her that way, as though her desire to feel pleasure was shameful. She was too good for them. She was too good for him.


	21. Chapter 21

The first time he learned what despair truly was her hair was six inches long and tightly curled.

Her favor had adorned the wrists of many, always made of that same golden silk. He wondered if it was a signature of sorts or if she was slowly demolishing the sheets they’d made love on to create them.

The favor she had given him years before was hidden away in a tiny carved box beside his bed, and though her favors grew more elaborate with each passing year, the one she’d given him was still the most beautiful.

She was free with herself, and though he did not begrudge her the pleasure of indulgence he wished it could be his body that she slaked her lusts upon. His adoration and love for her had not waned in intervening years. But she would not speak to him and he could not find the strength to face her. He despaired each and every time she flitted into shadowed corners, dragging someone along behind her, wishing he was the recipient of that flirtatious smile. He tried so many times to find the right time and the right words to apologize, but as the years wore on it became harder and harder and he couldn’t manage it. Their silence continued.


	22. Chapter 22

The first time he assaulted someone who had not threatened him first, her hair curled to the ends of her shoulder blades, finally growing out. Nearly a century had passed since he had lain with her and his shame over his final words to her was still the last thing he thought about at night, her gentle smile and the pleasure she had found with him the first things on his mind as he woke. They still had not spoken beyond what was required of them and their respective stations at court.

He found her in a dark and abandoned hallway, pressed against the stone in the shadows beside a window and giggling as she halfheartedly protested that the woman pressed against her stop kissing her neck. He clenched his fists and ground his teeth and tried to force himself to go back the way he came and leave her to enjoy her lover. But then her voice, louder than before, stopped him.

“Hey, we talked about this,” she said forcefully, nothing playful in her tone anymore. He looked back at her and saw her struggling with the other woman’s hands. “We are not having sex here. We aren’t having sex at all yet, remember?” The woman’s husky and coaxing reply was too quiet for him to hear. “No!” Fenora cried indignantly, pushing at her ineffectually, and Abelas had enough. He stalked towards them and grabbed the woman, a warrior he recognized from the training yard, one who fought with a greatsword and would be far stronger than Fenora and her skills with twin daggers. He slammed her into the floor and punched her face, breaking her nose in a single blow as she yelled. He had to struggle not to simply pound her into a pulp. Anea hissed and growled, her claws digging into his shoulder for purchase as she spat little bursts of lightning at the woman in her fury.

“She said no,” he snarled at the woman on the floor beneath him. Then he let her up reluctantly. She fled without a word, her hands pressed to her face to try to slow the bleeding as she sprinted away, Anea hot on her heels and pursuing in the gliding run of her kind. He stood there shaking with adrenaline, staring after her and attempting to compose himself.

“I could have handled that,” Fenora told him calmly, what she thought about it hidden from him behind her most emotionless tone. He finally turned to her and what he saw nearly drove him to his knees.

Her dress was pale Elvhenan silk held with silver clasps on her shoulders, her arms left bare, and draping across her chest to reveal teasing flashes of the swells of her breasts. A pale blue sash wrapped around her hips and the skirt was loose, a slit up the side revealing most of her left leg. She was flushed and utterly lovely. But she looked at him blankly, as though he could have been anyone at all, and that tore him like a knife in the chest.


	23. Chapter 23

“You could have,” he agreed. Her strengths were many and he knew them well; she would have destroyed the other woman if driven to. “But you did not need to.” They were silent then, just looking at each other through the gloom until he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Ir abelas,” he said at last, words that were a century too late but needed to be said. She frowned.

“It’s not like I _wanted_ to take care of it myself,” she told him. “I thank you for intervening.” She was trying to release him, dismiss him, but thoughts and words and emotions he’d been burying since that morning with her were bubbling up and would not be denied.

He shook his head. “Ir abelas, da’vhenan,” he told her. Her eyes widened. “I should have said that the moment the words left my mouth. I did not mean them, not like that. I meant to tell you only that I did not believe I could be what you needed, that I am no prince though you are a princess. I have always been a slave. For millennia, I was slave to Mythal. Now, I am slave to my own mistakes. I have replayed that moment countless times over the years since, thinking about what I should have said instead or how I should have made amends for poorly chosen words.”

She hugged her arms around herself and leaned against the wall, her eyes fixed on his face. Though he wanted to flinch away from her piercing gaze, he kept his eyes on hers. He owed her that, at least. “For a century I have allowed your words to poison me,” she told him, her voice dark and low with emotion she was keeping carefully contained. “I have never slept with the same person twice in my entire life. Yet you waited until now to say this to me?”

“I could not face my shame,” he admitted, then clenched his teeth. “That is no excuse.”

She finally closed her eyes, breaking their brief connection. She laid her head back against the cold stone of the wall and breathed out heavily. She was silent for a while and he wondered if she wanted him to leave. “I have waited one hundred and seventeen years for these words,” she whispered, her tone nearly reverent. Then she opened her eyes and pierced him her hard blue gaze. “Why now?” she asked. “What changed that allowed you to say this?”

“I do not know,” he admitted. “You spoke to me and the words came pouring forth. I could not contain them and I did not want to.”

“You watch me,” she told him. “I’ve noticed how your eyes follow me everywhere I go. I would have thought that I no longer existed to you but for the way your gaze was always stuck to me.”

“My feelings for you have never changed,” he said impulsively, the soft words flowing between them like a tide of emotion.

“And what do you feel for me?” she asked him in a whisper, her arms tightening around herself.

He didn’t hesitate, though the wisdom of the truth eluded him. “Ar lath ma,” he told her, voice strong and sure. He knew what he felt for her. Her breathing stuttered in her lungs, mouth hanging open and eyes wide.


	24. Chapter 24

“Ar lath ma,” she breathed back, and suddenly he found himself pressed against her, her arms around his neck and his around her waist with no memory of how they ended up in that position. She looked up at him with wide eyes, her pupils blown wide, and he trembled before her. “Yes,” she whispered, though he didn’t know why and he didn’t understand what was happening and he couldn’t think at all. Then his lips were on hers, the kiss desperate and impassioned. Her hands tightened on him, holding him close, her tongue chasing his in his mouth. He held her close, pressing her into the stone wall as heat built in him and pushed out the lingering chill of his shame.

Her knee glided up to hook on his hip, their height difference meaning that she had to stand on the toes of her other foot to manage it, and his hand moved to rest on her thigh, bared by the slit in her skirt. He moaned into her mouth at the feel of her silken skin and felt her shiver, reveled in it.

She tugged at him, yanked her skirt aside so that his clothed erection pressed against her smalls. Then she yanked at the ties on his trousers to free him. He did nothing to stop her, only kissed her harder and dug his fingers into the flesh of her perfect thigh. She freed him from the confines of his trousers and he hissed in a breath, pulling back to look at her. She measured his frantic pulse in the vein on the side of his cock and stared up at him, slowly stroking the flesh she held.

It was his turn to whisper, “Yes,” and watch her subtle smile light her features. She tugged her smalls to the side and fed him into her body. She watched him disappear inside and released a shaking breath. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself to him. He lifted her so that both her legs were wrapped around him, keeping her steady against the wall as he pressed into her.

It felt like coming home.

Standing there, fully clothed still, they kept their eyes locked on each other as they made love. He thrust into her desperately and she pressed back against him, rutting, pleasure building swiftly. He clutched her thighs to keep them connected and she squeezed his shoulders where she held them. She was resplendent, her body accepting him willingly, gratefully, her eyes unblinking on his, intimate.

She came first, shuddering and panting, nails digging into his skin through his shirt, clenching her whole body around him and milking him from within. He followed her quickly, the insistent clench and pull of her muscles rendering him helpless not to obey her body’s command. He flooded her, their gazes still locked, the raw pleasure they felt reflected in each other’s eyes. She was exquisite, her body demanding everything he had to give, her hair spread out over her shoulders and glimmering in the low light, her blue eyes like storm clouds, wide and passionate. Her mouth was open around her panting breaths, but as the pleasure settled he needed to kiss her. So he did, his lips gliding over hers, his tongue dancing in her mouth, and she accepted him with a little whimper.

“Again,” she breathed against his lips, and his cock twitched within her.

“Always,” he murmured brokenly, and surrendered himself to her desires.


	25. Epilogue

The first time he knew true contentment with his life her hair reached her waist and was strewn with little braids. They had been lovers for decades, something he’d never expected for himself.

He held her hands in his, their wrists crossed over each other, as they each vowed to love and care for one another for eternity. Then the ribbon of their magic sank into their flesh and his mind flooded with her. And he wept with the depth of her love and the strength of their bond and the wonder that they were wed. He gathered her into his arms and kissed her and she wept with him, right there for all to see. She was a princess, though far from the throne since her elder brother had so many children, and her wedding was attended by hundreds and they all saw the two of them crying as they held each other. And he couldn’t have cared less about the audience or their thoughts. All that mattered was the woman in his arms and her presence in his mind. She was perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> I want you all to know that Fenora is the bitchiest, most uncooperative OC I've ever had. When I initially designed her and figured out what she looks like, she was intended to be a lesbian. She was meant to be a bit of a free spirit who never really wanted to settle down and sort of flitted about making girls swoon in her wake. That was the intent. I worked very hard on my lesbian daughter. But then she went behind my back and just?? Fell in love??? With a man???? And I was so mad!!! Like, bitch, I already gave you a backstory and all these swooning girls, just be fucking happy! And she slapped me across the face and said, "NO! I am in love and you can't stop me!" And I was like, "Bitch I will uncreate you! I am your fucking god and I want you to love women!" And she replied, "You won't fucking uncreate me, you've worked too hard to give me up for liking dick." And she called my fucking bluff and here we are. My lesbian became bi and I'm still upset about it.


End file.
